The invention relates to an ablation catheter with a plurality of poles as well as to an ablation arrangement.
Ablation catheters of this kind are used for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes. On the one hand, signals belonging to the heart, namely ECG signals, can be picked up by the poles (diagnosis); on the other hand, ablations can be performed by means of HF energy outputs (therapy). During the ablation, a plurality of poles are advantageously connected together in order to achieve greater lesions. Switches are used for this purpose. After the switches have been closed, however, it is no longer possible to pick up an ECG signal between poles which have been short circuited by the switches.
In the case of certain heart rhythm disturbances, it is necessary to measure intracardial electrograms exactly in regions in which arrhythmias are triggered. In order to be able to detect the source of the arrhythmia exactly, catheters are provided with poles which mostly lie closely adjacent to one another. After a detection has taken place the poles which were used for the detection are used directly for the therapy in that HF energy is given off to the tissue for the purpose of thermal destruction. In order to produce larger lesions (e.g. linear or areal ones), the poles or some of the poles are short circuited through the closing of switches. In order to check on the success of the therapy using ECG measurements, the switches must be opened again.